The movies made them do it

Robert Fisk, intrepid Middle East correspondent, knows the real reason for the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers: the movies, in which Ay-rabs are portrayed exactly the way Jews were portrayed in Nazi propaganda, has convinced Westerners that Arabs are subhuman. His evidence: Ashanti, an obscure 1979 adverture flick starring Michael Caine:

Add to that the poisonous, racial dribble of a hundred Hollywood movies that depict Arabs as dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy and violent people -- and soldiers are addicted to movies -- and it's not difficult to see how some British scumbag will urinate into the face of a hooded man, how some American sadist will stand a hooded Iraqi on a box with wires tied to his hands.

The sexual sadism -- the bobby--sox girl soldier who points at a man's genitals, the mock orgy in Abu Ghraib prison, the British rifle in the prisoner's mouth -- might be a crazed attempt to balance all those lies about the Arab world, about the desert warrior's potency, the harem, polygamy. Even today, we still show the revolting Ashanti on our television stations, a feature film about the kidnapping of the wife of an English doctor by Arab slave--traders, which depicts Arabs as almost exclusively child--molesters, rapists, murderers, liars and thieves. It stars -- heaven spare us --Michael Caine, Omar Sharif and Peter Ustinov and was made partly in Israel.

Indeed, we now depict Arabs in our films as the Nazis once depicted Jews. But Arabs are fair game. Potential terrorists to a man -- and a woman -- they must be softened up, "prepared", humiliated, beaten, tortured. The Israelis use torture in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem.

It was partly made in Israel? My God, that's explains everything! Jeez, Fiskie, you could have at least used True Lies (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, now on an official visit to Israel!) or The Delta Force (produced by Cannon Films, a company based in Israel!) as your example.

There's no room for the likes of Three Kings or The Siege in Fisk's world, of course - not to mention something like The Sum of All Fears, in which the Arab terrorists of the book were changed to Austrian neo-Nazis for the movie. (And, of course, Fisk will never, ever acknowledge the vile anti-Jewish hatemongering which regularly appears on Arab television, even though he lives in Beirut can can easily flick over to Hezbollah's Al-Manar channel now and then.)

Here's a selection of anti-Semitic propaganda from the Nazi era. I do not think I am in denial by saying that, no, we do not portray Arabs in fashion even close to how the Nazis portrayed the Jews - and that Fisk's continuing attempts to belittle the persecution and genocide of the Nazi era are becoming increasingly disturbing.

Posted by damian at May 5, 2004 07:07 AM